TURKEY. Eighteenth-century manuscript entitled 'Notizie sopra lo stato della Turchia da Differenti Autori', Vienna, circa 1790, a fair copy prepared for publication of three works, in Italian, including: 'Relazione di Giovanni Botero sullo stato della Turchia nel principio del secolo decimo settimo', 28 pages, folio ; 'Osservazioni sopra lo stato attuale dell'Impero Ottomano, 1782' approximately 81 pages, folio ; and 'Esame delle cagioni dell'Ingrandimento e della Decadenza dell'Imperio Ottomano, scritto a Napoli l'anno 1788, di Stefano Raicevich, consigliere di S[ua M[aesta] F e R etc', approximately 129 pages, folio ; the texts written in a neat cursive hand in brown ink within margins ruled in pencil, list of contents, title-pages to each part, front title-page written within an engraved border and inscribed at foot 'I: Eder verleyt in Wien', altogether approximately 230 pages, folio , a few blanks, contemporary half-gilt, mottled papered boards. Provenance . The manuscript was discovered by the present owner with books and papers from the library of the historian Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall (1774-1856). Three apparently unpublished texts for the Austro-Hungarian reader at the turn of the 18th-century. The first part, largely an aperçu of 16th-century Ottoman history up to the death of Murad III (1603), recalls the Hungarian campaign of Mehmed II. The second is a well-informed study of Ottoman government, including both the court at Topkapi Palace and the administrative system in the provinces, especially Bosnia, Herzegovina, Moldavia and Wallachia, followed by an examination of the prospects for increased trade with Turkey, particularly for Transylvania and Banat. Raicevich describes the period before the conquest of Constantinople, the hierarchy of the ruling Ottoman establishment, the causes of Ottoman decline in the 18th-century, the role of Russia and Catherine the Great ('l'immortale Caterina'), and naval prospects in the Black Sea, culminating in a fervent appeal for the liberation of the Sultan's Christian subjects: 'Lasciate, che purgono l'Europa di una Razza degenerata, che ne forma la vergogna e l'obbrobrio e sottragono le piu felici contrade dell'universo ad un governo odioso'. Botero's 'Relazione' is said in an introductory note to have been extrapolated from a manuscript in the King of Sardinia's archive at Turin which was acquired by the Sardinian envoy to Vienna, in 1780. Botero (d.1617), was secretary to Cardinal Carlo Borromeo (d.1584) and tutor to the Sardinian royal family. His Relazioni Universali (1612) includes a treatise on 'Il Gran Turco'. The author of the second text is unidentified. Stefano Raicevich, author of works on Wallachia and Moldavia, was counsellor to Ferdinand IV of Naples. The texts were probably prepared for publication in connection with the the Congress of Sistova, in August 1791, which ended three and a half years of campaigning in which Austria was supported by Russia, and defined the frontier between Turkey and the Habsburg lands. The establishment of trading rights in the Ottoman empire was of particular importance after the Treaty of Kutchuk Kainardji in 1774 secured for Russia access to the Mediterranean and the right of protecting the Christian minorities.
TURKEY. Eighteenth-century manuscript entitled 'Notizie sopra lo stato della Turchia da Differenti Autori', Vienna, circa 1790, a fair copy prepared for publication of three works, in Italian, including: 'Relazione di Giovanni Botero sullo stato della Turchia nel principio del secolo decimo settimo', 28 pages, folio ; 'Osservazioni sopra lo stato attuale dell'Impero Ottomano, 1782' approximately 81 pages, folio ; and 'Esame delle cagioni dell'Ingrandimento e della Decadenza dell'Imperio Ottomano, scritto a Napoli l'anno 1788, di Stefano Raicevich, consigliere di S[ua M[aesta] F e R etc', approximately 129 pages, folio ; the texts written in a neat cursive hand in brown ink within margins ruled in pencil, list of contents, title-pages to each part, front title-page written within an engraved border and inscribed at foot 'I: Eder verleyt in Wien', altogether approximately 230 pages, folio , a few blanks, contemporary half-gilt, mottled papered boards. Provenance . The manuscript was discovered by the present owner with books and papers from the library of the historian Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall (1774-1856). Three apparently unpublished texts for the Austro-Hungarian reader at the turn of the 18th-century. The first part, largely an aperçu of 16th-century Ottoman history up to the death of Murad III (1603), recalls the Hungarian campaign of Mehmed II. The second is a well-informed study of Ottoman government, including both the court at Topkapi Palace and the administrative system in the provinces, especially Bosnia, Herzegovina, Moldavia and Wallachia, followed by an examination of the prospects for increased trade with Turkey, particularly for Transylvania and Banat. Raicevich describes the period before the conquest of Constantinople, the hierarchy of the ruling Ottoman establishment, the causes of Ottoman decline in the 18th-century, the role of Russia and Catherine the Great ('l'immortale Caterina'), and naval prospects in the Black Sea, culminating in a fervent appeal for the liberation of the Sultan's Christian subjects: 'Lasciate, che purgono l'Europa di una Razza degenerata, che ne forma la vergogna e l'obbrobrio e sottragono le piu felici contrade dell'universo ad un governo odioso'. Botero's 'Relazione' is said in an introductory note to have been extrapolated from a manuscript in the King of Sardinia's archive at Turin which was acquired by the Sardinian envoy to Vienna, in 1780. Botero (d.1617), was secretary to Cardinal Carlo Borromeo (d.1584) and tutor to the Sardinian royal family. His Relazioni Universali (1612) includes a treatise on 'Il Gran Turco'. The author of the second text is unidentified. Stefano Raicevich, author of works on Wallachia and Moldavia, was counsellor to Ferdinand IV of Naples. The texts were probably prepared for publication in connection with the the Congress of Sistova, in August 1791, which ended three and a half years of campaigning in which Austria was supported by Russia, and defined the frontier between Turkey and the Habsburg lands. The establishment of trading rights in the Ottoman empire was of particular importance after the Treaty of Kutchuk Kainardji in 1774 secured for Russia access to the Mediterranean and the right of protecting the Christian minorities.
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.jpg "Source: Christie's")
.jpg "Source: Christie's")
